The first presidential candidate who agrees to take along some extra baggage for the voters on their near empty chartered flights has my vote.

Could work for car pooling as well. Catch John McCain when he is in St. Paul for the convention. I am sure he'll give you a lift if he is going your way.

I don't really fly much as I'm not very worldly and rarely have a reason to leave the midwest. However this airline stuff is still getting out of hand.
For the majority of americans airline travel is a luxury. I understand that lots of business types have to fly all over the place all the time, and so for them it is a necccesity, but for most of the people who travel domestically for leisure it is a convinience — simply a time saver.
I don't understand where these airlines get off charging $100 or more for a "free" trip. I also don't really understand the need to charge extra for carry-ons and such. Shouldn't that just be rolled into the price? Or set some rules about the number of bags / total weight of bags that you can bring?
Maybe they are trying to make the trip seem less expensive? $400 for a ticket, and $25 here, $15 there, plus this fee, plus the tab that the pilot left at the bar 10 minutes before take-off, and maybe another $75 here for an irregular bag. Now you're looking at a $600 ticket. It's kinda like the 2 for $4 ketchup thing — most consumers realize they're paying more, so what's the point?

Reminds me of the jump suits in the original movie The Andromida Strain -- they were paper. I'm just waiting for the day when, for security, you put all your clothes and personal effects into a small locker, which gets checked on the plane. You are given a paper outfit and slippers to wear. At your final destination, you get your locker back (you hope), and the paper outfit is disposed of.

Jacob

_@_v - i'll take the train thank you very much.

_@_v - or i'll ride the bus... a few years ago got a good deal to syracuse by buying my ticket from adirondack trailways and ended up on a grayhound bus anyway - interlining agreement.

_@_v - if i ever have the means to fly somewhere i'll look into buying a ride on someone's private jet. again with what airlines are charging it'd be cheaper to go in style...

According to Reuters, "About 2.7 million fewer passengers will travel with major US airlines this summer due partly to high fuel prices, a weakening economy and capacity cuts, the Air Transport Association of America said [in May]."

For some of us, it ain't the fuel, the economy, or the cuts in flights (which have hit a lot of smaller airports here in western Pennsylvania). We just don't want to fly anymore.

Being treated like cattle (more specifically, cash cows, as in the latest round of baggage surcharges) has worn thin. I now drive up to 10 hours, rather than fly. That's expensive, too, of course ... but I save a lot on shipping by transporting company products with me instead, I have a car at my service when I arrive, and I don't pay some cabbie $50 for a half-hour drive from some remote airport into town.

Also, I can come and go when I please. Getting there "fast" by air is a bit pointless when capricious airline scheduling means you have to take the flight in at 6 a.m. for the show that starts tomorrow, and must hang around in an airport until your 10:45 p.m. flight after an event that ended six hours earlier. Having a car lets me decide when to come and when to go.

When it comes to travel, I'd rather drive myself ... I can keep my shoes on, and the pretzels are better! I can even have peanuts!

I dunno, I think it's pretty awesome that for a hundred bucks I can fly from D.C. to Detroit in just over an hour. Beats the 10 hours it takes to drive. I like flying, too--not to mention the view! And even hanging out in airports is fun. I guess if I flew more often I might enjoy it less, but a couple times a year it's still a novelty.

I'm going to my niece's birthday party in Omaha next weekend. 10 hours to drive across the hell that is the Midwest in July with no A/C, at a cost of $200 for fuel and meals (not counting the loss from the unpaid day off for Friday travel), or a 90-minute flight in air-conditioned comfort (total time from door to door around four hours), at a cost of $225 plus parking. Unlike y'all, I'm not a masochist.

The stupid part is they'll charge me $15 to check my suitcase, but I can carry it onto the plane and bonk other passengers on the head with it trying to cram it into the overhead bin (thus making it impossible for anyone else to fit their own body-bag-size carry-on on the plane) for free. I use the same amount of fuel either way, but they're discouraging the polite, easy option. Dumb.